On Sunday, 16 districts in Sindh held the local government elections’ second round. Major opposition parties, including the ruling PPP, had expressed worry about a strange delay in the results in Karachi and had accused the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) of poor administration.
The opposition PTI and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) charged the provincial administration of “rigging and controlling things” in its favour, and as a result, the ECP delayed the announcement of the results of the 236 union committees of Karachi for more than 36 hours.
On Wednesday, the PTI claimed that PPP members had attacked its employees, while the Keamari DC insisted that PTI members had broken into the office and been harassing the staff.
As a result of winning the most seats in Karachi and a commanding majority in the Hyderabad division, the PPP has emerged as the biggest winner in Sindh’s second round of local body elections.
However, the PTI leader criticised the government, claiming that “it uses force, blackmail, police harassment and money to get votes”.
He continued by stating that it was “now also clear” why the coalition government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had thrown their support behind the opposition to the PTI’s efforts to implement electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Imran claimed that EVMs “provide transparency and immediate results” and “prevent rigging” and the “engineering of results.”
“Right now the results of LG elections which should have come out within a few hours at most were coming out with a staggering delay– some for days, allowing for massive foul play,” Imran remarked.
Sindh LG polls and clashes
He alleged that PTI’s Ali Haider Zaidi and others forcibly entered the premises and broke the locks. “The PTI workers ransacked the computer and harassed staff including female returning officers who were busy performing their electoral duty,” he said.
On Wednesday, the PTI claimed that PPP members had attacked its employees, while the Keamari DC insisted that PTI members had broken into the office and been harassing the staff.
He added that PTI employees flung stones and damaged many vehicles’ windows. He said that police intervened to stop the vandalism and ejected the party members from the DC office.
Abro stated that PTI leaders and employees would be the subject of a first information report regarding the incident.
